First Day Firsts

 Alright.  Here's the deal.  I'm worried it's going to take a couple of MONTHS to recap everything that has happened over the last couple of weeks!  Since I like to go big or go home, we pretty much packed as MUCH as possible into the 17 days we were on the road.  This trip has been in the works almost since the beginning of the year, and we've been planning and prepping for it accordingly. 


 On the road!  Everyone was super excited to get going.  :)

 Those 5 dollar headphones from Target sure were a life saver while they still worked.  ;)

Ethan found almost half the states' license plates in the first 3 hours on the road! {I found this free license plate bingo printable on Pinterest.}

The genesis of the idea -- for an epic, Great-American-Road-Trip-style trek -- came from an Instagram account that I follow.  I don't actually know this person in real life, but she lived in New Orleans (my hometown) for a while after I had already left for college, we have a few overlapping friends, and way back when people still blogged, I read hers regularly.  :)  Last summer, when I saw that THEY made an epic out west trek themselves {although from even further away -- North Carolina to Utah}, I thought "hmmm, that sounds kind of fun."  When we started talking about possibly making a trip to Utah this summer to visit family, I threw out the idea of a road trip to Scott, and he was properly floored.  You see, I am NOT a good road tripper.  I don't enjoy being trapped in the car for long periods of time, my ADHD flares up big time, I get carsick easily, and I have a bad back, so sitting for long periods of time is not ideal.  I have NEVER {ever} wanted to make the drive out to Utah because it would require 20+ hours on the road.  However, after seeing how awesome this other family made the trip, I decided to test out the waters with our own kids to see if they'd be game.  And since framing is everything, I did my best to make it sound like I didn't know if I was up for it, while playing up the coolness of all the different places we could see.  And boy did the kids fall for it.  By building up the hype, showing them the Instagram pictures of all the places we would potentially hit up, and talking it up real big, I roped every single kid {and Scott, by default} into my crazy scheme.  Mwahahaha.  Hahaha.

 First "eating out" experience of the trip -- a Freddy's in Springfield.

 Baby's first french fries.  They grow so fast.  ;)


By the time the big bon voyage came, we were ready for the adventure.  In my handy dandy Road Trip Binder, I had a printed schedule for each day, detailing departure times, arrival times, cities we'd be stopping in, activities/events on the agenda while there, and addresses for our pit stops, ready to be plugged into the GPS.  The thing that I'm most proud of with this trip is that even though everything was planned to a T, we were realistic and allowed for flexibility when it came down to the nitty gritty of each activity.  Which is really quite a feat for a Type-A, control-freak, doesn't-do-well-without-a-plan type of personality such as myself.  ;) There were many things that we ended up scratching off our list of activities as the trip wore on when we realized that certain children were not handling life very well, and that adding another outing or meet-up with people they don't even know was too much to ask of them. 




For my sanity's sake, I knew that we had to break up the long drives into manageable chunks -- preferably with something fun to do in the interim.  Day One was almost a perfect execution of this ideal.  We hit the road early on Friday, July 1st, stopped midday for lunch and to visit the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, IL, then continued on our way to the first pit stop of our trip in Nauvoo.  The kids actually had a blast at the museum -- the exhibits were pretty quick to walk through (at least the ones we did) and "Mrs. Lincoln's Attic" was a fun little hands-on/children's museum type area for the kids to play around in.  It was a PERFECT way to stretch our legs after being in the car for the first half of the day.  Before heading out, we saw a quick, historical performance using holographs that was just the right length and entertainment level to keep the kids from revolting.  Hahaha.  When the show was over, we hit up the gift shop and snapped a few more pictures before loading up and heading back on our way. 



 Mrs. Lincoln

 Lincoln Logs!




 Harriet Tubman



Our final pit stop for the night on Day One, was Nauvoo -- an historical site for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Grace apparently didn't realize that we'd be learning about church stuff on vacation, so there was a short meltdown about that, but after getting food in their bellies at dinner time, everyone was in a MUCH better frame of mind to enjoy our stay in beautiful Nauvoo.  :) 

 We tried to use the selfie stick, but we were shut down.  Hahaha.

 No selfie sticks allowed inside the museum.

 But no one could stop us OUTside.  Hahaha.  :)




{More stories and recaps are on their way...}

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